This is the story of Mary Rowlandson’s capture by American Indians in 1675. It is a blunt, frightening, and detailed work with several moments of off-color humor. Mary, the wife of a minister, was captured by Natives during King Philips War while living in a Lancaster town, most of which was decimated, and the people murdered. See through her eyes, which depict Indians as the instruments of Satan. Her accounts were a best-seller of the era, and a seminal work, being one of the first captivity narratives ever published by a woman...

These 12 stories give a personal portrait of twelve famous soldiers from the past two centuries. Each story explores the early life of the solder —to trace his career up from boyhood through the formative years. Such data serves to explain the great soldier of later years. Summary compiled from the preface of the book. (Summary by philchenevert)

“I have known, and loved, and studied many cats, but my knowledge of her (Pretty Lady, a cat) alone would convince me that cats love people–in their dignified, reserved way, and when they feel that their love is not wasted; that they reason, and that they seldom act from impulse.” The thoughts of Helen Winslow, a thoughtful and articulate cat friend, about the cats in her life.

Biographies of Raphael Santi, Murillo, Peter Paul Rubens, and Albrecht Durer. This is a wonderful tool for art study as there are references for further study, as well as ideas for language arts to incorporate into the study.

This is a detailed biography of the life and adventures of Daniel Boone. His accomplishments are brushed over in history classes these days and not given the recognition they deserve. This biography clearly paints a picture of the benevolent person of Daniel Boone as well as the achievements he made in furthering European settlement in America.

“Mrs. Beeton’s” is a guide to all aspects of running a household in Victorian Britain. Published in 1861, it was an immediate bestseller, running to millions of copies within just a few years. In the cookery sections, Mrs. Beeton follows the animal “from his birth to his appearance on the table.” Learn how to care for poultry during moulting season, how to wean calves, how to cure hams, salt cod, carve mutton, and much more.

Formed during World War II, the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), was organized for special operations and intelligence gathering and analysis. Included in its mission was the implementation of, and training of foreign forces in, propaganda, espionage, subversion, and sabotage. After the war, OSS functions were transferred to the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). This “Simple Sabotage Field Manual” was used by OSS agents in training “citizen-saboteurs” in methods for inciting and executing simple sabotage to thwart industry and other vital functions in Axis-occupied areas.

“With the Greek civilisation beauty perished from the world. Never again has it been possible for man to believe that harmony is in fact the truth of all existence.”This elegantly-written work provides a splendid introduction to the Greeks of the classic period: how they thought, wrote, and organised their lives and loves. Although it dates from the 1890s, there is very little about it that has dated. To its author’s credit, the subject of “Greek love” is dealt with in a sane and factual context - despite the judicial assassination of Oscar Wilde going on in the background...

The Author sings the praises of Chocolate. “By the wise and Moderate use whereof, Health is preserved, Sicknesse Diverted, and Cured, especially the Plague of the Guts; vulgarly called _The New Disease_; Fluxes, Consumptions, & Coughs of the Lungs, with sundry other desperate Diseases. By it also, Conception is Caused, the Birth Hastened and facilitated, Beauty Gain’d and continued.”

This comprehensive guide on dog-rearing looks at dogs as more than just pets - as people's best friends. The author describes each breed of dog in a detailed and systematic way, with complete notes on show-dogs.

This pamphlet was published in the early 20th century by the United States Rubber Company so that “coming generations of our country … have some understanding of the importance of rubber in our every day life… We believe the rubber industry will be better off if the future citizens of our country know more about it.” Learn about Christopher Columbus’s discovery of rubber, how the crafty British entrepreneur, Wickham, managed to smuggle rubber seedlings out of Brazil, and how rubber manufacturing came to be a “peculiarly American industry...

The Lives of the Most Excellent Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, from Cimabue to Our Times, or Le Vite delle più eccellenti pittori, scultori, ed architettori, as it was originally known in Italian, is a series of artist biographies written by 16th century Italian painter and architect Giorgio Vasari, which is considered "perhaps the most famous, and even today the most- read work of the older literature of art", "some of the Italian Renaissance's most influential writing on art", and "one of the founding texts in art history"...

A series of occasionally witty one-liners, poems and considerations on the subject of Men, Women and their Conjunction. By turns tender, bland, sexist (in both directions!) and funny.

"There appeared from the bushes in front of me, and right in the path, two immense gray wolves . . . Rollo saw them and stopped instantly, giving deep sighs, preparing to snort, I knew . . . To give myself courage, I talked to the horse, slowly turning him around . . . when out of the bushes in front of us, there came a third wolf! The situation was not pleasant and without stopping to think, I said ‘Rollo, we must run him down - now do your best’ and taking a firm hold of the bridle, and bracing myself in the saddle, I struck the horse with my whip and gave an awful scream...

Francis Parkman (1823-1893) has been hailed as one of America’s first great historians and as a master of narrative history. Numerous translations have spread the books around the world. The American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) in his book O Canada (1965), described Parkman’s France and England in North America in these terms: The clarity, the momentum and the color of the first volumes of Parkman’s narrative are among the most brilliant achievements of the writing of history as an art...

Parkman has been hailed as one of America's first great historians and as a master of narrative history. Numerous translations have spread the books around the world. The American writer and literary critic Edmund Wilson (1895-1972) in his book "O Canada" (1965), described Parkman’s France and England in North America in these terms: "The clarity, the momentum and the color of the first volumes of Parkman’s narrative are among the most brilliant achievements of the writing of history as an art...

In this collection of essays, Bruce Barton, considered to be among the most influential advertising men of the 20th century, uses history, religion and current events of the 1920s to teach common sense ideals. From Jesus to Beethoven to Napoleon to Abraham Lincoln, Barton uses stories of great individuals to encourage the reader to make the most of life and at the same time to build strong character traits.

LINEAGE LIFE AND LABORS of JOSE RIZAL PHILIPPINE PATRIOTBY AUSTIN CRAIGINTRODUCTION In writing a biography, the author, if he be discriminating, selects, with great care, the salient features of the life story of the one whom he deems worthy of being portrayed as a person possessed of preeminent qualities that make for a character and greatness. Indeed to write biography at all, one should have that nice sense of proportion that makes him instinctively seize upon only those points that do advance his theme...

Faces and Places is a collection of articles on nineteenth century travel, events and personalities by the British journalist Henry Lucy, who wrote for the Daily News, a London newspaper. His open letter To Those About to Become Journalists rings as true today as when it was written.The first article, “Fred” Burnaby, includes a lively account of a balloon trip, while Night and Day on the Cars in Canada and Easter on Les Avants relate Lucy’s experiences of rail travel at that time. Other travel tales (A Night on a Mountain, Mosquitoes and Monaco, and Oysters and Arcachon) provide an insight into the Victorian Englishman’s attitude to Europe...

East by West: a Journey in the Recess is an account of British journalist Henry Lucy's travels across America and on to the Far East during the parliamentary recess in 1883. Lucy was one of the most influential journalists of his day and, as "Toby M.P.", a noted humorist in Punch magazine. His acute powers of observation and light touch make this a most engaging book. It is a fascinating insight into the Englishman's travels abroad within two decades of the American Civil War and the end of Japanese isolationism...

We are weary of witnessing the greed, selfishness and cruelty of “civilized” man toward the wild creatures of the earth. We are sick of tales of slaughter and pictures of carnage. It is time for a sweeping Reformation; and that is precisely what we now demand. -William Temple Hornaday

Mary Henrietta Kingsley (13 October 1862 – 3 June 1900) was an British explorer and writer who greatly influenced European ideas about Africa and its people. Kingsley was an outspoken critic of European colonialism, a champion for indigenous customs, and a dedicated campaigner for a revised British policy which supported traders and merchants over the needs of settlers and missionaries. Her adventures were extraordinary and fascinating. Among other things she fought with crocodiles, fell into native spear traps and was caught in a tornado on the slopes of Mount Cameroon...

“If you have visions of a middle-aged parasol-bearing lady smiling sweetly from her carriage as she tours Bendigo think again. In 1852, 20 year old clergyman’s daughter Ellen and her brother boarded ship for Melbourne then set off to walk to Bendigo. Dressed in her blue serge skirt which doubled as nightwear, she camped under a tent made of blankets, had mutton, damper and tea most meals and on arrival lent her hand to gold washing. And seemed to enjoy it !And amongst other things she tells of colonial life , transportation, emigration and other gold-fields.But you will need to listen to hear more about bush-rangers and orphans as well as what she did with her parasol.”

The Ontario Readers is a school book first published in 1909, by the Ontario Ministry of Education, containing short excerpts of literary works, both stories and poems, geared to grade-school age children.

The Abraham Lincoln Statue at Chicago is accepted as the typical Westerner of the forum, the rostrum, and the tribune, as he stood to be inaugurated under the war-cloud in 1861. But there is another Lincoln as dear to the common people–the Lincoln of happy quotations, the speaker of household words. Instead of the erect, impressive, penetrative platform orator we see a long, gaunt figure, divided between two chairs for comfort, the head bent forward, smiling broadly, the lips curved in laughter, the deep eyes irradiating their caves of wisdom; the story-telling Lincoln, enjoying the enjoyment he gave to others. (from the preface of the book)

The experiments herewith reported were undertaken with the view of introducing certain improvements into the oil-drop method of determining e and N and thus obtaining a higher accuracy than had before been possible in the evaluation of these most fundamental constants. From the Physical Review, Vol. II, No. 2

Notes on Nursing was published in 1859 and is a fascinating view into the theories underpinning the early development of modern nursing and public health reform by "the Lady with the Lamp", Florence Nightingale. Emphasising common sense and thought for the patient's care in many more ways than just administering physician-prescribed medicines, this is still a very relevant book for those interested in health or caring for the sick and infirm today.Summary by Cori Samuel.

The famous physicist Sir Isaac Newton lectured on optics from 1670 - 1672. He worked on the refraction of light into colored beams using prisms and discovered chromatic aberration. He also postulated the corpuscular form of light and an ether to transmit forces between the corpuscles. His "Opticks", first published 1704 contains his postulates about the topic. This is the fourth edition in English, from 1730, which Newton corrected from the third edition before his death.

The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man. Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison with the second (Malthus).

How to live on 5 cents a day! How to survive financial ruin without losing your house! How to keep to a bare bones budget and still have money left over to buy books! Tough questions! They were tough questions even in the 1870’s, when Sarah Elizabeth Harper Monmouth penned her quirky memoir, the subtitle of which was “How a Lady, Having Lost a Sufficient Income from Government Bonds by Misplaced Confidence, Reduced to a Little Homestead Whose Entire Income is But .00 per Annum, Resolved to Hold It, Incurring no Debts and Live Within it...

EVERY age, every race, has its leaders and heroes. There were over sixty distinct tribes of Indians on this continent, each of which boasted its notable men. The names and deeds of some of these men will live in American history, yet in the true sense they are unknown, because misunderstood. I should like to present some of the greatest chiefs of modern times in the light of the native character and ideals, believing that the American people will gladly do them tardy justice.

"We also have a religion which was given to our forefathers, and has been handed down to us their children. It teaches us to be thankful, to be united, and to love one another! We never quarrel about religion."

Geology is a science of such rapid growth that no apology is expected when from time to time a new text-book is added to those already in the field. The present work, however, is the outcome of the need of a text-book of very simple outline, in which causes and their consequences should be knit together as closely as possible,—a need long felt by the author in his teaching, and perhaps by other teachers also. The author has ventured, therefore, to depart from the common usage which subdivides...

Son of John Westgarth, surveyor-general of customs for Scotland, was born at Edinburgh, in June 1815. He was educated at the high schools at Leith and Edinburgh, and at Dr Bruce’s school at Newcastle-on-Tyne. He then entered the office of G. Young and Company of Leith, who were engaged in the Australian trade, and realizing the possibilities of the new land, decided to emigrate to Australia. He arrived in Melbourne, then a town of three or four thousand inhabitants, in December 1840.When the new colony was constituted Westgarth headed the poll for Melbourne at the election for the legislative council...

A collection of memoirs about the Peninsular War, the Battle of Waterloo, and society and personalities of Regency London and 19th century Paris, by a sometime Grenadier Guards officer, unsuccessful parliamentarian, and dandy. Gronow displays social attitudes of the day which would now be regarded as unacceptable, but is a clever raconteur who brings to life both the horrors of war and the gaiety of high society.

Warner's thoughtful and often humorous memoir of his life as a young farm-boy in Charlemont, Massachusetts. (Introduction by Mark Penfold)

Originally published by the Norwegian-American economist Thorstein Veblen while he was a professor at the University of Chicago in 1898, the Theory of the Leisure Class is considered one of the great works of economics as well as the first detailed critique of consumerism. In the book, Veblen argues that economic life is driven not by notions of utility, but by social vestiges from pre-historic times. [Summary modified from Wikipedia.]

“Among other qualities which have been supposed to belong to a dead man’s hand, are its medicinal virtues, in connection with which may be mentioned the famous ‘dead hand,’ which was, in years past, kept at Bryn Hall, Lancashire… Thus the case is related of a woman who, attacked with the smallpox, had this dead hand in bed with her every night for six weeks, and of a poor lad living near Manchester who was touched with it for the cure of scrofulous sores.” Though not all chapters have such gruesome subjects as The Dead Hand, all are full of a curious mixture of superstition and local history that will delight and amuse the modern listener.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869 – 1948) was the pre-eminent political and spiritual leader of India during the Indian independence movement. He was the pioneer of satyagraha — resistance to tyranny through mass civil disobedience. This philosophy was firmly founded upon ahimsa, or total nonviolence, and led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi is commonly known around the world as Mahatma Gandhi and in India also as Bapu. He is officially honoured in India as the Father of the Nation; his birthday, 2 October, is commemorated there as Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday.

Dr. Walsh’s Old-Time Makers of Medicine chronicles the history and development of modern medicine from ancient times up to the discovery of America. Throughout this historical guide, Dr. Walsh shows numerous examples of practices thought to be entirely modern that were clearly anticipated hundreds or thousands of years ago. Ancient healers sought to use the body’s natural healing ability, rather than rely exclusively on external cures. Physicians even in ancient times relied on what is now recognized as the placebo effect...

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe moved to California from Massachusetts during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800’s. During her travels, Louise was offered the opportunity to write for The Herald about her travel adventures. It was at this point that Louise chose the name “Shirley” as her pen name. Dame Shirley wrote a series of 23 letters to her sister Mary Jane (also known as Molly) in Massachusetts in 1851 and 1852. The “Shirley Letters”, as the collected whole later became known, gave true accounts of life in two gold mining camps on the Feather River in the 1850s...

“This book contains the record of a few of the many happy days and novel experiences which I have had in the wilds. For more than twenty years it has been my good fortune to live most of the time with nature, on the mountains of the West. I have made scores of long exploring rambles over the mountains in every season of the year, a nature-lover charmed with the birds and the trees. On my later excursions I have gone alone and without firearms. During three succeeding winters, in which I was a Government Experiment Officer and called the “State Snow Observer,” I scaled many of the higher peaks of the Rockies and made many studies on the upper slopes of these mountains.”

The journal of William Bradford, who served five terms as governor of the Plymouth colony, is an indispensable document of the events of early American history. His eyewitness account includes the stories of the Pilgrims’ sojourn in the Netherlands, the voyage of the Mayflower, the hardships of the New World, relations with the Indians, and the colony’s growth from an endangered enterprise to a thriving city. This edition of Bradford’s Of Plimoth Plantation presents the text in language made more accessible to the modern reader

Published in 1904, The Twentieth Century New Testament is considered the first translation of the Bible into modern English. It was produced in Britain over a period of 15 years by approximately 20 people -- ministers, housewives, school teachers and businessmen -- who were united by their desire for a New Testament in the language of the people. They were advised by such scholars as J. Rendel Harris and Richard Weymouth so their rendering is quite accurate. In addition they made some effort at rearranging the New Testament books in the order scholars believe they were written -- Mark comes before Matthew, for instance...

George Hamilton was the surgeon assigned to the frigate Pandora. The British Admiralty ordered the ship to the Pacific to arrest the Bounty mutineers and bring them back to England for trial. The commander, Captain Edward Edwards, also was ordered to chart the passage between Australia and New Guinea. While Edwards managed to arrest the mutineers still on Tahiti, he sank the Pandora on a reef near Australia. Hamilton tells this story and also the story of the crew’s fate after the Pandora sank.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn (1890-1964) was a leading American socialist and feminist. Her book “Sabotage, the conscious withdrawal of the workers’ industrial efficiency” was written to explain the utility and legality of sabotage.

Being the full account of the capture and fifteen months’ imprisonment of Corporal Edwards, of the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, and his final escape from Germany into Holland.

Ab urbe condita, is a monumental history of ancient Rome written in the Latin language by Titus Livius(Livy), an ancient Roman historian. The work covers the time from the stories of Aeneas, the earliest legendary period from before the city's founding in c. 753 BC, to Livy's own times in the reign of the emperor, Augustus. The last year covered by Livy is 745 AUC, or 9 BC, the death of Drusus. About 25% of the work survives.Livy's History of Rome was in demand from the publication of the first packet...

This is not a manual of instruction for orchid growers; though there are many hints on cultivation, and a few paragraphs on how to hybridize. The author is just an enthusiastic amateur orchid lover. He takes the reader on a wander through the dangers and consequences of hunting orchids in the tropical jungles of the nineteenth century, and chats about the extreme peculiarities of orchid growth, behaviour and structure, colouring the essays with his own experiences and with his delight in cultivating these beautiful plants. Beware! A new hobby beckons!

"Famous Affinities of History" is a book of passion-filled accounts of the most famous love affairs of history. The stories of Cleopatra, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Jonathan Swift, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Byron, George Sand and other famous people of all times (even those of royal blood are not spared), are dealt with in Lyndon Orr's own interesting and suspenseful style. Written in four volumes, this book makes for an informative, interesting and thoroughly enjoyable read, giving us an insight into the lives and lifestyles of various popular figures of history.

Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, is a collection of Walter Pater's previously-published essays on literature. The collection was well received by public and critic since its first edition, in 1889. The volume includes an appraisal of the poems of Dante Gabriel Rossetti, first printed in 1883, a few months after Rossetti's death; an essay on Thomas Browne, whose Baroque style Pater admired; and a discussion of Measure for Measure, one of Pater's most often reprinted pieces. The second edition, published in 1890, had a few modifications, and is the basis for all other editions of the book.

Jean-Henri Casimir Fabre was a French entomologist and author. He was born in St. Léons in Aveyron, France. Fabre was largely an autodidact, owing to the poverty of his family. Nevertheless, he acquired a primary teaching certificate at the young age of 19 and began teaching at the college of Ajaccio, Corsica, called Carpentras. In 1852, he taught at the lycée in Avignon.

A 1922 source-book for British criminal pathologists, this will be of particular interest to fans of popular police forensics television shows, films, and murder mysteries.

In the book's preface, the author writes: "Let anyone stop to consider how he individually would be affected if all electrical service were suddenly to cease, and he cannot fail to appreciate the claims of electricity to attentive study."In these days when we take for granted all kinds of technology - communications, entertainment, medical, military, industrial and domestic - it is interesting to learn what progress had been made in the fields of electricity and technology by the beginning of the 20th century...

Bastiat asserted that the only purpose of government is to defend the right of an individual to life, liberty, and property. From this definition, Bastiat concluded that the law cannot defend life, liberty and property if it promotes socialist policies inherently opposed to these very things. In this way, he says, the law is perverted and turned against the thing it is supposed to defend.

While claiming to be historical papers on the causes of the United States Civil War, the author indulges in some Slavery Apologetics. An interesting view from a southern lady on what caused the war and why the south was the underdog.

Isabella Matilda Davis Brittingham was a significant early American Bahá’í and was posthumously designated by Shoghi Effendi as one of the 19 Disciples of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Heralds of the Covenant. She was born in 1852, the daughter of Benjamin Davis, who was a grandson of John Morton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Her sister-in-law heard about the Bahá’í Faith in 1897 and in 1898 Isabella herself became a part of the nascent American Bahá’í community. In September 1901, Isabella went on pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where she met ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, the leader of the Bahá’í Faith and son of the Founder, Bahá’u'lláh...

Ellen Gould White (1827 – 1915) was a prolific Christian writer, authoring 40 books in her lifetime. She was active in the Millerite movement, and was one of the principle founders of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.Steps to Christ, first published in 1892, is her most popular book. It has been translated into more than 70 languages. The theme of the book is how to come to know Christ better.

"In preparing these volumes for the public, I have entered upon the task with the sincere desire to avoid doing injustice to any one, whether on the National or Confederate side, other than the unavoidable injustice of not making mention often where special mention is due. There must be many errors of omission in this work, because the subject is too large to be treated of in two volumes in such way as to do justice to all the officers and men engaged. There were thousands of instances, during the rebellion, of individual, company, regimental and brigade deeds of heroism which deserve special mention and are not here alluded to...

Among the national leaders whose names will always hold an honorable place in American history is Ulysses S. Grant, the simple-hearted man and capable soldier, to whose patriotism, courage, persistence, and skill was so largely due the successful termination of the war between the States, the contest which assured the foundations of the Republic. We are interested not only in learning what this man did, but in coming to know, as far as may be practicable, what manner of man he was. It is all-important in a study of development of character to have placed within reach the utterances of the man himself...

Langstroth revolutionized the beekeeping industry by using bee space in his top opened hive. In the summer of 1851 he found that, by leaving an even, approximately bee-sized space between the top of the frames holding the honeycomb and the flat coverboard lying above, he was able to quite easily remove the latter, which was normally well cemented to the frames with propolis making separation hard to achieve. Later he had the idea to use this discovery to make the frames themselves easily removable...

The Elements of Style (1918) by William Strunk, Jr. is an American English writing style guide. It is one of the best-known and most influential prescriptive treatment of English grammar and usage, and often is required reading in U.S. high school and university composition classes. The original 1918 edition of The Elements of Style detailed eight elementary rules of usage, ten elementary principles of composition, “a few matters of form”, and a list of commonly "misused" words and expressions...

A guide for women to complement their dress to their surroundings, be it in their own home, on outings or on stage. Please note that there is a separate chapter with the captions of the fashion plates which can be found in the online text.

The Ethics is a philosophical book written by Baruch Spinoza. It was written in Latin. Although it was published posthumously in 1677, it is his most famous work, and is considered his magnum opus.In The Ethics, Spinoza attempts to demonstrate a "fully cohesive philosophical system that strives to provide a coherent picture of reality and to comprehend the meaning of an ethical life. Following a logical step-by-step format, it defines in turn the nature of God, the mind, human bondage to the emotions, and the power of understanding -- moving from a consideration of the eternal, to speculate upon humanity's place in the natural order, freedom, and the path to attainable happiness...

'Straight from the horse's mouth', as they say. Edward Ruppelt was the first head of the U.S. Air Force's Project Blue Book, the official project initiated to investigate UFO reports beginning in 1952. This report from 1956 takes us inside these initial investigations, separates fact from fiction, and gives insight into who, when, where, and how sightings were reported and researched in open-minded fashion (for which Ruppelt was renowned), rather than in the typical hushed and secretive (and censored) manner most often associated with government and military reports which are released to the public...

The first volume of Lea’s monumental work on the Inquisition of Spain, covering its origin and establishment and its relations with the state. Also included are appendices listing Tribunals, Inquisitors-General, and Spanish coinage.

Having, on his first voyage, discovered Australia, Cook still had to contend with those who maintained that the Terra Australians Incognita (the unknown Southern Continent) was a reality. To finally settle the issue, the British Admiralty sent Cook out again into the vast Southern Ocean with two sailing ships totalling only about 800 tons. Listen as Cook, equipped with one of the first chronometers, pushes his small vessel not merely into the Roaring Forties or the Furious Fifties but becomes the first explorer to penetrate the Antarctic Circle, reaching an incredible Latitude 71 degrees South, just failing to discover Antarctica. (Introduction by Shipley)

“I seen my opportunities and I took ‘em.”, George Washington Plunkitt of Tamminy Hall. There’s honest graft and dishonest graft according to Plunkitt. Listen to this candid discourse from a 19th century politician, and decide for yourself if things have changed.

This work describes and analyzes several cases of pathological behavior. The interest comes not only from the cases themselves, but also from the of-its-time analysis which is mired in what we now know to be wrong thinking about mental illness, sexuality, gender, and race. - written by Mary Schneider

"Jesus of Nazareth, a Biography, by John Mark," recognizes the author of the second Gospel as that "John, whose surname was Mark" (Acts 15:37), whom Barnabas chose as companion when he sailed for Cyprus on his second missionary journey. In making use of the new title, the plan of the Editor is to present "The Gospel: According to Mark" as it would be printed were it written in the twentieth rather than the first century. (Introduction from Forward, by D. Appleton & Co, Publishers, 1922)

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata. It depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king.

The Ramayana is an ancient Sanskrit epic. It is attributed to the Hindu sage Valmiki and forms an important part of the Hindu canon (smṛti). The Ramayana is one of the two great epics of India, the other being Mahabharata. It is the story of Rama, who emabrks on an epic journey followed by the fight with Ravana, the demon king who abducted Rama's wife, Sita. The epic depicts the duties of relationships, portraying ideal characters like the ideal servant, the ideal brother, the ideal wife and the ideal king. (Introduction by Om123)

William Law (1686-1761) was an Anglican priest, Christian mystic, and one of the most prominent, popular, and controversial theological writers of his time. Law revolutionized the way in which 18th century Anglicans engaged the spiritual aspect of their faith, and his popularity rivaled that of John and Charles Wesley. Law adapted mystical practices from early church writings to the practice and doctrine of the modern British church, with the intention of equipping the Anglican layman to pursue intimacy with Christ...

“Perceiving that much of the intrinsic value of these Journals would consist in a proper understanding of the historical facts to which allusions are made in them, I prevailed upon Mr. Lossing, the well-known author of the “Pictorial Field-Book of the Revolution” to illustrate and elucidate these diaries by explanatory notes. His name is a sufficient guaranty for their accuracy and general usefulness”

Sara Cone Bryant was an educator and storyteller who wrote several books on the importance of oral storytelling to children, and stories to tell children. This volume expounds on her theories and practices of telling stories to children, and provides several examples. Her conversational writing style makes this work as relevant for parents and teachers as it was 90 years ago.

A first-hand account of the 1913-1919 campaign of American suffragists, detailing their treatment at the hands of the courts, and the true conditions of their incarceration.

Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, recalls growing up in early 19th Century Massachusetts. (Introduction by Veronica Jenkins)

A non-fictional account of Burke and Wills’s 1860 expedition to cross the Australian continent from south to north and then return. Containing many excerpts from the diaries and accounts of the explorers, this book was published the year after the expedition met its disastrous end.(description written by trioptimum)

Published in 1920, Slosson’s Easy Lessons in Einstein is one of the first popularizations of Einstein’s theory of relativity. This book is meant to convey to the general reader the ideas of relativity in non-mathematical terms, by the use of thought experiements and pop-cultural references of the day. This edition also includes a short article by Einstein on Time, Space and Gravitation.

Slosson reviews the transformation of alchemistry from an obscure and imprecise practice to the science of chemistry. Along the way, he explains how the modern industrial world now relies on fertilizers, explosives, textile materials, polymers and metals.By exploring the properties of a once undervalued element, the high strength of vanadium steel made the Ford car possible. Another element, cerium, appears in butane lighters and was once seen as a threat to the match industry in France.In his chapter on oils, Slosson reviews the development of hydrogenated oils, especially during WWII, in the search for a way to reuse otherwise discarded components of corn and cottonseed...

Mr. Brooks, in this compilation, has endeavored to select those incidents and practical remarks from Mr. Müller's Narratives, that show in an unmistakeable way, both to believers and unbelievers, the secret of believing prayer, the manifest hand of a living God, and His unfailing response, in His own time and way, to every petition which is according to His will. (From the Preface)

Kalimát-i-Maknúnih or The Hidden Words is a book written in Baghdad around 1857 by Bahá'u'lláh, the founder of the Bahá'í Faith. This work is written partly in Arabic and partly in Persian. The Hidden Words is written in the form of a collection of short utterances, 71 in Arabic and 82 in Persian, in which Bahá'u'lláh claims to have taken the basic essence of certain spiritual truths and written them in brief form. Bahá'ís are advised by `Abdu'l-Bahá, the son of Bahá'u'lláh to read them every day and every night and to implement its latent wisdom into their daily lives...

Robert C. Leslie (1826-1901) was an artist and writer who, at an early age fell in love with the sea, the sea of Sail, not of Steam. He describes the progression of this love from wave to wave and boat to boat. Leslie sailed during the Great Age of Sail before Industrialism had taken possession of Britain. Leslie comments on the early days of singlehanded small boat sailing: “When I first began boating in the early forties[1840s], what is now called single-handed cruising was almost unknown among amateurs…...

A whimsically serious look at the umbrella and society.

Joseph Lister was born near London in 1827. He studied medicine at the University of London and pursued a career as a surgeon in Scotland. He became professor of Surgery in Glasgow and later (1877) at Kings College Hospital, in London. Lister’s contribution to the advancement of surgery cannot be overestimated. Before his work on antisepsis, wounds were often left open to heal, leading to long recoveries, unsightly scarring, and not infrequently amputation or death due to infection. Lister’s work enabled more wounds to be closed primarily with sutures, drastically reducing healing time, scarring, amputations, and deaths due to infection...

Jock of the Bushveld is a true story by South African author Sir Percy Fitzpatrick when he worked as a storeman, prospector's assistant, journalist and ox-wagon transport-rider. The book tells of Fitzpatrick's travels with his dog, Jock, during the 1880s. Jock was saved by Fitzpatrick from being drowned in a bucket for being the runt of the litter. Jock was very loyal towards Percy, and brave. Jock was an English Staffordshire Bull Terrier.

This recording was released to coincide with National Cheese Lovers’ Day 2010 in the United States. Robert Carlton Brown (1886 – 1959), after living thirty years in as many foreign lands and enjoying countless national cheeses at the source, returned to New York and summed them all up in this book. After majoring in beer and free lunch from Milwaukee to Munich, Bob celebrated the end of Prohibition with a book called Let There Be Beer! and then decided to write another about Beer’s best friend, Cheese...

Delightful sketches of British wild birds – a bird for every month of the year from the pheasant in January to the robin in December. This collection of articles, reprinted in book form from the periodical The Outlook, is full of fascinating information about bird behaviour and habitat, as well as many interesting anecdotes. Out of date in some respects, particularly in its reference to the (now illegal) collecting of birds’ eggs, this book brings home forcefully how the populations of some British wild birds have declined since it was written.

Geronimo’s Story of His Life is the oral life history of a legendary Apache warrior. Composed in 1905, while Geronimo was being held as a U.S. prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Geronimo’s story found audience and publication through the efforts of S. M. Barrett--Lawton, Oklahoma, Superintendent of Education, who wrote in his preface that “the initial idea of the compilation of this work was . . . to extend to Geronimo as a prisoner of war the courtesy due any captive, i.e. the right to state the causes which impelled him in his opposition to our civilization and laws...

A Narrative of Personal Experiences of the Officer Commanding the 4th Field Ambulance, Australian Imperial Force from his leaving Australia December 1914 till his evacuation due to illness after 5 months at Gallipoli. Read to remember those who were there. (Introduction by Annise)

We cannot ignore the fact that we must eat, and that much as we dislike to acknowledge it, we are compelled to think a great deal about filling our stomachs. This is especially true these days, when prices have soared and soared and taken along with them, far out of the reach of many of us, certain articles of food which we heretofore have always felt were quite necessary to us. About ten years ago the idea of writing a little cook book had its birth. We were in Almora that summer. Almora is a station far up in the Himalayas, a clean little bazaar nestles at the foot of enclosing mountains...

Other People's Money and How the Bankers Use It is a collection of essays written by Louis Brandeis published as a book in 1914. The book attacked the use of investment funds to promote the consolidation of various industries under the control of a small number of corporations, which Brandeis alleged were working in concert to prevent competition. Brandeis harshly criticized investment bankers who controlled large amounts of money deposited in their banks by middle-class people. The heads of these...

Until relatively recently, music students at all levels of study—from the conservatories to public schools—had few resources available for the formal study of musical notation and terminology in the classroom. In fact, it was not until 1914, when Professor Karl Gehrkens at the Oberlin School of Music published this compilation of class notes and sources he collected over the years, that a uniform text became available for schools and universities everywhere. Since the publication of this monumental work, similar textbooks have emerged, but Dr...

A short self portrait of Powys’ beliefs, temperament and peculiarities which prefigures his later, greater Autobiography.

"The expedition of Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, for exploring the river Missouri, and the best communication from that to the Pacific Ocean, has had all the success which could be expected. They have traced the Missouri nearly to its source; descended the Columbia to the Pacific Ocean, ascertained with accuracy the Geography, of that interesting communication across the continent; learned the character of the country, its commerce and inhabitants; and it is but justice to say that Messrs. Lewis and Clarke, and their brave companions, have, by this arduous service, deserved well of their country...

In 1898, during the construction of river-crossing bridge for the Uganda Railway at the Tsavo River, as many as 135 railway workers were attacked at night, dragged into the wilderness, and devoured by two male lions. The Man-Eaters of Tsavo is the autobiographical account of Royal Engineer Lt. Col. J.H. Patterson's African adventures. Among them, his hunt for the two man-eaters.This book was the basis for the 1996 film The Ghost and the Darkness.

An account given of the lives of five great naturalists (Hippocrates, Aristotle, Galen, Vesalius and Harvey) will not be found devoid of interest. The work of each one of them marked a definite advance in the science of Biology. There is often among students of anatomy and physiology a tendency to imagine that the facts with which they are now being made familiar have all been established by recent observation and experiment. But even the slight knowledge of the history of Biology, which may be obtained from a perusal of this little book, will show that, so far from such being the case, this branch of science is of venerable antiquity...

Jane Addams was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a long, complex career, she was a pioneer settlement worker and founder of Hull-House in Chicago, public philosopher (the first American woman in that role), author, and leader in woman suffrage and world peace. She was the most prominent woman of the Progressive Era and helped turn the nation to issues of concern to mothers, such as the needs of children, public health and world peace. She emphasized that women have a special responsibility to clean up their communities and make them better places to live, arguing they needed the vote to be effective...

Much of the material in the following pages has appeared in current publications. It is here presented in book form in the hope that it may prove of value to those groups of people who in many cities are making a gallant effort to minimize the dangers which surround young people and to provide them with opportunities for recreation. (Introduction by Jane Addams) Jane Addams (1860 – 1935) was the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a long, complex career, she was a pioneer settlement worker and founder of Hull House in Chicago, a public philosopher, a sociologist, an author and a spokesperson for women's suffrage and world peace.

Ezra Meeker…was an early pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox cart as a young man. Beginning in his 70s, he worked tirelessly to memorialize the trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. This book is a memoir of those days.